“Ah! Then you are ‘back once more on the old trail’?”

“Yes,” I answered, with a laugh, “ ‘the old trail, the long trail, the trail that is always new.’ ”

“And leads nowhere,” Thorndyke added grimly.

I laughed again; not very heartily, for there was an uncomfortable element of truth in my friend’s remark, to which my own experience bore only too complete testimony. The medical practitioner whose lack of means forces him to subsist by taking temporary charge of other men’s practices is apt to find that the passing years bring him little but grey hairs and a wealth of disagreeable experience.

“You will have to drop it, Jervis; you will, indeed,” Thorndyke resumed after a pause. “This casual employment is preposterous for a man of your class and professional attainments. Besides, are you not engaged to be married and to a most charming girl?”